By Clarence Okoh

Public and private actors are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) and other big data technologies to engineer new futures for structural racism and social inequality in the United States, a phenomenon that the sociologist Ruha Benjamin has termed the “New Jim Code.”

These technologies are upending decades of civil and human rights legal standards, expanding mass criminalization, restricting access to social services, and enabling systemic discrimination in housing, employment, and health care, among other areas.3 The New Jim Code carries unique threats to youth and young adults of color, especially in the context of K-12 public schools.

In recent years, federal policymakers have taken steps to address the societal implications of AI and big data technologies, including the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, President Biden’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence, and the U.S. Department of Education’s guidance on AI in schools. However, these efforts have largely failed to address the specific harms that these technologies raise for youth and young adults of color and youth from other historically marginalized communities.

As the infrastructure of police surveillance grows in public schools, communities must be prepared to safeguard the rights and freedoms of students and families. This report is designed to help youth justice advocates, youth leaders, educators, caregivers, and policymakers understand and challenge the impact of school surveillance, data criminalization, and police surveillance technologies in schools.

This report includes:

• An analysis of six key facts about the impacts of data criminalization and school surveillance technologies on education equity.

• A case study of an AI school surveillance technology that can land children in adult misdemeanor court.

• Key recommendations for education policymakers and school district leaders for advancing youth data justice.

Washington, DC:CLASP, 2024. 17p.

By The Southern Poverty Law Center; Delvin Davis

On July 19, 2022, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced his decision to transfer incarcerated young people to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola – an adult prison with a long history of human rights abuses. The decision was emblematic of a state that consistently sees young Black people as criminals to be captured and controlled rather than healed and rehabilitated.

In this report, Only Young Once: The Urgent Need for Reform of Louisiana’s Youth Justice System, we explore how the perceptions of Black youth contribute to an overreliance on punitive measures – in both Louisiana’s school and juvenile justice systems – leading to stark racial disparities. The report also details the significant physical and psychological harm posed to incarcerated youth, while Louisiana taxpayers pay the cost for a fiscally wasteful approach to youth crime.

Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2023.